Why StubHub Dominates The Secondary Ticket Market

The online secondary ticket market for sporting events has been going gangbusters, with StubHub, a subsidiary of eBay, the market leader.

Sports bankers say the net result has been an increase in revenue for teams by making it easier to sell season tickets to fans who know they can more easily unload tickets they cannot use. But some teams, like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, feel that large brokers are creating havoc with ticket prices, resulting in empty seats at stadiums and forcing teams to charge higher prices for the cheapest seats.

Here I interview the experts in the online secondary ticket market from SeatGeek, FanSnap and StubHub, as well as Yankees COO Lonn Trost for our television show Forbes SportsMoney on the YES Network. We get into what StubHub has means for sports fans and teams, and why it dominates its industry with estimated revenue of $325 million and operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $80 million.